Missoula Community Food Co-op Tour
The Missoula Community Food Co-op tour kicks off the Festival at 5:00 p.m. today with attendees meeting at 1500 Burns Street, the residential location of the retail grocery cooperative and future home of a community kitchen and cafe. Come see the beautifully renovated warehouse and tour the unique member-owned and operated store. Jessica Glebke, Co-op Board Co-Chair will lead the tour with representatives of the North Missoula Community Development Corporation (NMCDC), Maxine Jacobson Hermina Harold and KD Dickinson who will answer questions related to the kitchen and cafe.
Immediately after the tour, Festival attendees will gather for a cocktail reception at the Missoula Art Museum (MAM). Come network and enjoy great local food and refreshments while architect, Warren Hampton talks about the transformation of MAM’s old Carnegie Library building to it’s current mix of historical and modern architectural design. Participate in a “citizen juried” art show while viewing the current MAM exhibits and listening to jazz trio, Triple Sec.
Welcome to the New West Festival!
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.”
–John Ruskin, English writer and critic of art, architecture, and society, 1819-1900
As we began to plan for the first annual New West Festival, we spent considerable time thinking about allof the reasons we write what we do on the site and all of the reasons people like to read what we write. What makes life in the Rocky Mountain region so interesting to so many people? Not just people in the region (our second highest traffic on the site comes from a state outside of our six-state area of coverage) but also people from all over the world?
There is a magic and a mystique about life in the West, and there is a special relationship between the Rocky Mountain people (inhabitants and visitors) and the vast expanse of breathtaking land in the region. You can’t visit this part of the country without at least one awestruck moment, and if you had missed that moment, you wouldn’t be reading this.
So I know that you know what I mean.
The New West Festival brings together experts and visionaries in an eclectic array of topics that are geared to make you think about the region, about your work, about your life, and about your brand (personal or professional). Each speaker or panelist has been chosen because they not only understand their topics, they also love the West, and they want to leave you with ideas and actionable information in their respective areas of expertise.
They want to meet you, to talk with you, to hear your thoughts and ideas as well, so each session will have a Q&A period. You’ll be asked for your feedback, your ideas and your opinions, which will help to better inform our work as a media company covering this region.
Thursday Evening Reception
We begin with an artistic opening evening at the architecturally memorable Missoula Art Museum. We’ll serve local foods and cocktails, and we’ll provide an introduction to the building from lead architect Warren Hampton. Originally from Montana, he returned to help vision this wonderful mix of the old and the new, and he looks forward to sharing some of his experience from that project. In addition to viewing the art currently showing in the galleries, you will also meet the Alpine Artisans, a “collective” of varied medium artists who work and live in the Seeley-Swan corridor about 45 minutes from Missoula. You’ll have an opportunity to talk with the artists and to vote for your favorite in a “citizen juried” award.
Friday All-day Sessions
Friday morning, the topics turn to more serious matters, though the tone of the day will be informatively informal and thought-provoking. You’ll hear a world champion extreme skier turned activist talk of her experiences traveling the globe as she tries to understand and communicate her real life experiences as she watches what she calls “global weirding” rather than “global warming”. Her climate change session will give you practical first-hand information about her efforts to save our snow. She’ll also tell you howshe has both succeeded and failed as she seeks to reduce her own personal carbon footprint.